Knowing Your Employees – An Overview

Any individual who strives hard to accomplish goals and objectives of a particular organization is called as employee. Employees are hired to perform specific duties as per their specialization, interest areas and previous experiences. Employees earn their salaries in exchange for their hard work, labour, knowledge and expertise. It is rightly said that the success and failure of an organization depends on its employees. Employees are indeed the lifeline of an organization.

Management should know its employees well. You need to understand your employees and what they expect from the organization? How can you ignore someone who spends his/her maximum part of the day at workplace? Believe me, there are some organizations where managers don’t even know the names of their subordinates. Organizations of such kind always face problems like employee dissatisfaction, high attrition rate and frequent conflicts among team members and eventually fail to do well in the long run. How would you feel if someone addresses you by a wrong name or simply by “Hey or Mr. or Ms”? It is an absolute insult to an employee who is addressed by a wrong name.

As a manager; you need to know some basic details of your employees. Yes, you need to memorize the names of all individuals who are directly/indirectly reporting to you, their expertise, background, capabilities etc.

Management spends most of its time and energy in knowing the target customers, then why not know your employees as well who are so important for your organization? Employees who feel ignored at the workplace seldom contribute to the success of an organization.

Take out some time to sit with your team members to understand their expectations, interest levels, grievances or any other problems they face in their day to day operations and so on.

It is important for the managers to connect with their team members. You ought to have the contact numbers of all your team members with you. Wish them on their birthdays and anniversaries to make them feel special.

Trust me, knowing your employee not only strengthens your relationship with your team members but also make you a source of inspiration for them.

Let your employees know that you care for them. Make them feel valued. Find out what is important to them, understand where they see themselves five years down the line, know in which all areas they can contribute their level best.

Knowing employees not only helps managers extract the best out of staff members but also motivates them to perform exceptionally well everytime. As a manager, it is your responsibility to assist them in their day to day operations and help them achieve their goals and targets. You need to know what your employees are upto? A manager must be aware of the key responsibility areas and job responsibilities of all his team members.

Knowing your employee also enables you to have a control on your subordinate. If you yourself don’t know the job responsibilities of your team members, how can you expect them to respect and most importantly trust you. Find out whether they have any problems in the organization or not? Stand by them whenever they need your help.

Managers need to acknowledge the hard work of their employees to expect a brilliant performance from them always. Knowing employees gives them a sense of recognition at the workplace. One feels proud to be a part of the organization and eventually delivers his/her level best.